Weekly television digest (Jan-Dec 1963)

NEW SERIES VOL. 3, No. 44 Trade Personals TELEVISION DIGEST-n Harold B. Avery, ex-GESCO-Philadelphia gen. mgr., joins Philco as national radio products sales mgr., succeeding Bruce Lambert, recently appointed mgr. of Philco Distributors-Philadelphia. Gene K. Beare, Sylvania pres., elected to NEMA board of governors. Bernard L. Grossman, ex-consumer products service field sales mgr., appointed RCA Service Co. technical products service market research and development mgr. Forbes Mann named Ling-Temco-Vought govt. & foreign relations vp Gerald G, Grllfln resigns as TelePrompTer mktg. vp. Brock P. Hayes, ex-Texas Instruments, joins General Instrument as national distributor sales mgr. for semiconductor products. George Foueer promoted from Audio Devices production control mgr. to product mgr. for sound recording tape & accessories; Robert Fraser, ex-Sound Corp. of America, named product mgr. for lubricated tapes & cartridges. September's boom TV business (Vol. 3:42 p8) is continuing into Oct. Preliminary figures show first 2 weeks of Oct. saw 12% increase in b&w TV sales to dealers, compared with same 1962 weeks (11-in. sets not included). TV mix in b&w continues to show trend to portables & away from consoles. For 1963 to date, portables & table models represented 68. 1% of distributor-to-dealer TV sales (vs. 63.5% in comparable 1962 period), consoles 27. 2% (vs. 32. 3%), combos 4. 6% (vs. 4. 1%). In terms of screen sizes, 8% of 1963 sales were 16 & 17-in. (vs. 4.4%), 51.5% were 17 & 19-in. (vs. 48.9%), 40.4% were 21-in. & larger (vs. 46.7%). Radio sales to dealers during Oct.'s first 2 weeks ran 3% below same period last year. Both TV & radio inventories at factory-plus-distributor levels were down as of Oct. 11— TV down 12.5%, radio 9%— from year-earlier levels. (See p. 10 for 8-month TV-radio-phono figures.) New sets: Muntz's 2nd color TV combination, at about $600, is now being shipped. . . Olympic introduces 37-in. -wide color lowboy in contemporary styling, at open list Star-Llte announces Japanese-made 6-in. transistorized TV at $149. 95, battery $13. 95 extra. . . ITT will market hi-fi components built by Pioneer Electronic Corp., Tokyo, following successful showing of the equipment at N. Y. High Fidelity Music Show. Westlnghouse and lUE have agreed on basic 3-year contract providing for wage increases averging 13-l/2(i an hour for 36,000 employes in 34 plants. Longer vacations for 10-&-20 year employes and improved insurance, hospitalization & pension benefits are covered in a 5year pact. New contract provides 2 pay increases— 6-l/2(! hourly boost immediately, 5-10? rise (averaging 7?) efjfective April 19, 1965. Bendlx has formed Micrometrical Div. at Ann Arbor, Mich, as part of new scientific-instrument & processcontrol activity for expansion into field of scientific & industrial instrumentation. Frank W. Kabat named divisional gen. mgr. Augo factory sales of TV picture & receiving tubes were downbeat all the way. Unit sales of TV tubes slipped to 767, 529 from 795, 121 in Aug. 1962. Dollar value dipped to $14, 473, 647 from $15, 035, 830. Yearto-date figures also were depressed: 5.8 million tubes at $108. 9 million vs. 5. 9 million at $113. 4 million in 1962'sfirst 8 months. Receiving tube unit sales in Aug. slumped to 31, 569,000 from Aug.-1962's 34, 646,000. Dollar value was down to $25, 785, 000 from $29, 222, 000. Eight-month comparisons showed unit sales down to 220. 4 million from 242. 3 million in Jan.-Aug. 1962, dollar value $181. 6 million vs. $203. 2 million a year earlier. Here are EIA official figures: Picture Tubes Receiving Tubes Units Dollars Units Dollars January 890,246 $16,846,046 27,025,000 $ 22,524,000 February 639,392 11,990,595 26,382,000 22,354,000 March 760,524 14,223,503 30,285,000 25,643,000 April 771,073 14,197,385 26,167,000 21,521,000 May 703,393 12,888,058 26,662,000 21,600,000 June 707,541 13,462,906 29,332,000 23,764,000 July 603,622 10,818,297 22,688,000 18,148,000 August 767,529 14,473,647 31,569,000 25,785,000 Jon. -Aug. 1 %3 . 5,840,320 $108,900,438 220,444,000 $181,641,000 Jon. -Aug. 1962. 5,916,286 $113,432,881 242,271,000 $203,174,000 Add predictions: Motorola Consumer Products Inc. Pres. Edward R. Taylor, addressing 111. State Chamber of Commerce last week, estimated 1963 b&w sales at 6. 9 million, color at 600, 000. For next year, he foresaw 6.2 million b&w, 800,000 color. By 1968, he said, b&w should come back up to 6. 7 million, with color sales passing 2-million mark. Taylor said consumer electronics industry needs Quality Stabilization bill— "the bedrock of our retail structure is being forced out of business by ruthless price-cutting." Economic mtlook for 1964, he added, is "so pretty, it's ominous." He suggested that this is "a time to be wary, to get invciitories in line, to tighten up over-all operations." Biggest theater party in Broadway history is scheduled by Philco May 25 as part of May 22-26 dealerdistributor convention in N. Y. Sales Promotion Mgr. ' Owen H. Klepper was in N. Y. last week trying to round up 5, 000 tickets to various hit plays. He said tickets would consume about $45,000 of meeting's $1.5 million budget. Pilot Radio will enter color TV market in late fall with color TV-phono-radio combinations, we were told by Vp-Gen. Mgr. Roland J. Kalb. However, Pilot has changed its mind about making own chassis, now plans to buy color chassis from others, at least at outset. Magnavox Is discontinuing 4 low-end color models as result of color tube shortage (Vol. 3:41 p8). In addition to 3 consoles in $498-$525 range, company is dropping $795 color combo. Its color line now starts with $595 console. "Greatest local concentration of ad dollars ever allocated by Zenith for a 6-week period" is special added national newspaper & local-level campaign announced last week. Covering Nov. 1-Dec. 15 period, it involves more than $1 million, will promote TV, radio & stereo.